Federal court in Florida accepts hoax lawsuit against Manziel

Posted by Mike Florio on May 23, 2014, 10:02 AM EDT

AP

Yes, Johnny Manziel technically has been sued for sexual harassment in a Florida federal court.

No, it’s not a real lawsuit. It’s a hoax. An obvious hoax. A hoax so obvious that the clerk of the court should have refused to dignify it with a date stamp or with an assignment of the case to both a judge and a magistrate.

Courts typically accept whatever comes in, and then they sort it all out later. But it may be time for courts to revisit that approach, given that anyone can put together anything and send it in and have it become officially filed — which gives it a weird sense of credibility and legitimacy, even when it’s clearly a hoax.

The lawsuit, which was filed on May 16, 2014, was sent to us last night by a reader. The named plaintiff is Samantha Schacher. Whoever drafted the hoax lawsuit has tried to create the impression that it’s the same Samantha Schacher who serves as an HLN contributor and co-host of the network’s Dr. Drew show. (There’s a reference in the lawsuit to Manziel suggesting a “threesome with Dr. Drew.”)

Before sharing any specifics from the hoax lawsuit, I need to point out once again that it’s clearly a hoax.

“Defendant Manziel has been sexually harassing me since Valentine’s Day, 2013, calling me non-stop on my Samsung Phone and sending me naked selfies of himself showing me his penis,” the lawsuit alleges. (The folks at Samsung may or may not appreciate the gratuitous plug.)

The lawsuit — again, it’s a hoax — also claims that Manziel sent a naked picture of himself with his penis in a hotdog bun, that he sent a photo with a “ruler next to his erect penis that measured 4-1/2 inches,” that he “keeps asking me to strip for him at his boy, Lebron James’ crip [sic] in Miami,” that Manziel “told me he does steroids and lifts weights,” and that “if another man ever talks to me, he would beat them up and get away with it because he’s famous.”

The lawsuit — again, hoax — says that Manziel confessed that he cheated on his college exams, that he’ll “get a penis enlargement and be my Long John Silvers [sic],” that he smoked marijuana before games in the locker room, that he received “lavish gifts” from Texas A&M, that he’d buy the plaintiff “sex toys with secret money Kevin Sumlin provides him,” and that he “refers to his penis as his Vienna Sausage.”

The lawsuit — again, hoax — says that “Judereon” Clowney sent Manziel a picture of Clowney’s nine-inch penis, and that Manziel showed the picture to the plaintiff and “asked me if I could handle that monster.”

“I had to see a Psychologist because I have nightmares of Manziel’s penis,” the lawsuit — hoax — states. “Manziel sent me a homemade video of himself at Walt Disney World on ‘It’s a Small Word’ ride in the Magic Kingdom, and while the song is on, he puts the camera down unbuttons his pants, pulls his penis out and jingles [sic] his penis to the music. ESPN owns Disney and ESPN promotes Manziel, knowing he did this in ‘It’s a Small World.'”

Again, the lawsuit is a hoax. It never should have been stamped for filing, and it should be thrown out of court today.

Yeah I have a solution. How about a court system for courts to reconcile the stuff they get wrong or the crimes and inconveniences they commit. If they send you a notice to appear at a specific time and they aren’t remotely close to ready for you for hours, then they should have to pay a stiff fine for every person they do that to until they can figure out how to coordinate a schedule. In other news, I don’t like the court system in this country, we need to bring them to justice so they can be better at doing the same.

Oh man… Thank you PFT for providing me with a much needed laugh this morning. This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a while and the “hot dog bun” thing immediately mad me think of “Bachelor Party,” so I got a few more laughs.

So someone deliberately wastes the time of public servants which we all pay for with our taxes. After enough time and money is spent on this obvious hoax, it will be thrown out. How about this? How about we make filing obviously false claims in court is a crime as it incurs costs, wastes time and diverts resources from real work. Then we arrest the person who filed this and spend that time and energy prosecuting them.

tremoluxman says:May 23, 2014 10:37 AM

Hold on here, let’s not be hasty. As Fox News repeatedly asserts with their famous ‘some are saying’ line, some are saying this is for real. I don’t know and I’m not saying it’s true, but it does raise questions. After all, some are saying it may be true, so you can’t dismiss it out of hand. I think it should be thoroughly investigated. Gotta be Fair and Balanced.

The court can impose a filing ban requiring leave of the court to commence any subsequent actions. This does in fact happen from time to time. No need to overhaul the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or empower intake clerks to dismiss complaints sua sponte.

No one should advocate a judicial system–criminal or civil–where a court can decide, without hearing one shred of evidence, if a lawsuit has enough merit to go forward.

It’s called due process.

bigsowce604 says:May 23, 2014 11:35 AM

I hope they hang whoever filed this b.s

bamacharm says:May 23, 2014 11:37 AM

Yeah, hilarious (sarcasm) as long as you’re not the victim of the hoax. I really hope the identity of the moron who did this is revealed so that he has to spend the rest of his miserable existence worrying if the next person he meets is the one who is going to give him that whipping he deserves. Who knows? Maybe he and Johnny can meet one another someday, face-to-face.

Is this what espn was raving about when they were talking about his “measurables”?
Looks like he might actually be too small for this league…
He really needs to size up to the competition…
So now instead of it being fourth and inches it can be fourth and Manziel… First and clowney from the 20.

somethinghappeninghere says:May 23, 2014 11:54 AM

Funniest thing ever posted here, and maybe the entire internet! For a minute there I thought the hoax lawsuit would end with this: According to the suit, Manziel claimed, “The Miami Dolphins made me do it!”

You know what they say about men with big feet and big hands? They wear big gloves and big shoes. The guy is a lightning rod but if his game carries to the NFL, Browns fans will not care what he’s packing!

This sure sounds like a hoax & if it is, I hope whoever did it gets sued & some jail time/community service for wasting the courts time & money + slandering someone, but how is it up to a court clerk to decide whether it’s true or not? I don’t know much of how that pre lawsuits works so there may be a logical answer to my question but I don’t know if a court clerk should decide which are possibly true or made up. Just my opinion.

I find people laughing at this a part of the problem in our society. The person who misaccused JF should go to jail. Having been wrongly accused myself I agree this never should have even got into the system! As citizens we should not allow cr*p like this to gum up our judicial system for someone who thinks they can make a quick buck by being bought off. Not saying that everyone is innocent but there is just WAY too much of this going on.

Failure of the US court system and why Canada is better: The losing party would be responsible for the winning parties court costs. As things stand, plaintiffs have nothing to lose by filing these things while the defendant can be out thousands and more responding.

Everyone knows manziel has big hands thus the story is a total fabrication.

touchdownroddywhite says:May 23, 2014 3:04 PM

restorativejusticeprogram says: May 23, 2014 2:27 PM

Failure of the US court system and why Canada is better: The losing party would be responsible for the winning parties court costs. As things stand, plaintiffs have nothing to lose by filing these things while the defendant can be out thousands and more responding.

I am SO GLAD the Cowboys were astute enough to have passed on this kid, and went for the more solid and safe player.

Johnny will have too many distractions wherever he plays and the media won’t be able to get enough of it. If he had been drafted in Dallas, the media would have never left him alone. And it is now proven he didn’t have to go to Dallas to have drama follow him.

Good luck, Johnny. You are going to need it in Cleveland. Let’s see if you can prove those of us wrong who think you are going to be a bust.

The true identity of the plaintiff may not be known. The suit was filed under a fictitious name as part of the joke. The author of the hoax knew the media would pick up on it and disclose the contents of the complaint, thus spreading the joy.

I am sure that Johnny Football can safely ignore, especially if he wasn’t served papers. This didn’t cost taxpayers, filing suit requires a fee.